


a hand in the air.

by Navyrants



Category: We Know the Devil (Visual Novel)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/F, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6678985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Navyrants/pseuds/Navyrants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There won't always be someone there to catch you when you fall, but with friends that are willing to fall with you, you don't care.</p><p>| A collection of mini-fics, mostly AU. |</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. just out of sight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prompt from an anonymous user on tumblr:
> 
> "Prompt: Group South gets sent to the cabin, not Group West. Instead, Venus, Jupiter, and Neptune stay up all night alone by the fire, doing things like terrifying Venus with ghost stories, making smores, and actually enjoying themselves for a change."

Scary stories may be stupid, you think, but it’s always worth it to know the best ones.

Why? Well, the look of horror on Venus’s face right now is one good reason. Jupiter’s nervous fidgeting, too.

Technically speaking, the three of you aren’t supposed to be out here right now. _Technically speaking,_ everyone’s supposed to be in their cabins and all the fires are supposed to have been put out hours ago, but Group South is meeting the Devil and you watched the Captain sneak off with his girlfriend yourself. Who’s going to care if you stay up and actually have a little fun for once in your miserable lives?

Granted, it had still taken some convincing to get Venus and Jupiter to break the rules, but you pride yourself on being a _fantastic_ bad influence.

Venus glances behind her worriedly, like the monster you’ve been describing in gruesome detail is creeping just outside the ring of light cast by the fire. Jupiter twirls her marshmallow on its stick in an attempt to hide her own anxiety. You pitch your voice lower and step closer to the fire, letting it throw shadows over your cheekbones.

“But when they looked over their shoulders, it was gone. They barely had time to process the shadow falling over them before…” Venus shudders, and the nervous smile on Jupiter’s face delights you. You let your silence hang in the air, curling like the smoke, like the fear in your friends’ stomachs.

“Before what?” Jupiter breaks the suspense as she waves her marshmallow, trying to put out the flames that had sprouted in her distraction. You let your hands drop limply to your sides, giving her a deadpan look.

“No. Boo. You ruined the suspense. Now you don’t get to know.” You step around the fire and take the seat between the two of them, crossing your legs at your ankles and preparing a marshmallow that you most certainly will not burn.

“Oh, haha. Whoops.” You can feel the tension leaking out of your friends as Jupiter sloppily puts her blackened marshmallow between two graham crackers-–double chocolate on her s’more, as always--and takes a bite. You’re not even mad you didn’t get to finish your story.

You forgot the ending, anyhow.


	2. hands to guide.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from an anonymous user on tumblr:
> 
> "Can you do a one shot of Soccer player!Jupiter like when they're in school. Venus, Jupiter and Neptune would hangout a lot and Neptune is just so gay for Jupiter when she plays in the field"
> 
> Turned out a little more implied girlpile, though.

There will never be anything quite like the feeling of racing down the field, your bangs plastered to your face with sweat and your hair trailing behind you in its ponytail. The weight of the ball against your insoles as you dribble it is a comfort and the cheers from the sidelines are even more so.

Coach has you on center forward, like you always are even though you  _always_  miss the final goal. You don’t know why, exactly (or maybe you do, you just don’t want to admit it) but you just…freeze up. It’s like how you can’t commit to anything. It’s like how you don’t feel permanent.

But those thoughts don’t pass through your mind here, not in the middle of a game. Not when you’re nearing the other team’s goalie, not when you’re planning your shot. It’s not easy, with defense hounding you on both sides and the goalie crouched in preparation.

You lick your lips, scan your surroundings, and throw a glance behind you; one of your teammates is following you, wide open, and you know what to do.

Quick as lightning, you let the ball fall just behind you and bump it with your heel. Your teammate blows right past the defense–they never saw it coming. The entire other team’s focus had been on you, and as the ball sails into the net you can hear Neptune’s (and even Venus’s) cheers over the raucous crowd. The ref blows her whistle and you wipe your forehead, grinning over at your friends.

You wave at them enthusiastically; Venus waves back and Neptune yells something like “KICK SOME ASS!” followed by a few comments about the other team that will probably get them both kicked out. You know she doesn’t care, so you try not to either. Instead, you just jog back to your place in the middle of the field for the next play.

 

* * *

 

You end up losing the game by one goal, which you could have scored if you felt just a little more permanent. Coach tells you it’s not your fault and you played well, and you don’t want to make a scene, so you just shrug with an apologetic smile. You know some of your teammates blame you, but they always do, and how do you defend yourself when you agree with them?

When you meet your friends in the parking lot (you were right, they had gotten kicked out), Venus congratulates you on a game well played and Neptune declares you’re all going out for ice cream right this second. You think they know you blame yourself.

But when she takes your hand and Venus walks so close your shoulders are brushing against each other, you don’t think about it so much. 

You feel a little more permanent.


	3. heavy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You don't even know why it's so funny; it just _is._

It’s funny. It’s funnier than the best joke you’ve ever told, and it’s funnier than the worst pun you’ve ever heard, and it’s funnier than that time Venus accidentally drew a penis while idly doodling in her notebook. It’s funnier than it should be, really. You’re starting to think it’s funnier than it actually is.

That doesn’t make sense, you know that. You’ve heard from Venus and Neptune that you say a lot of things that don’t make sense. Like that you talk to people so they’ll leave you alone.

Yet here you are, laughing at the funniest thing in the world that actually isn’t funny at all.

It’s just kind of hilarious, you think, in a precisely unamusing way, how you’ve gotten to this point. And you hate yourself for realizing it now, sitting on her bedroom floor while she meticulously paints your nails–

(you’ve never had your nails painted before, but you couldn’t say no when she offered)

–with your hand delicately held in hers and her focus unwaveringly on you. Because of course, the moment you start laughing, she freezes, tiny nail polish brush hovering above your now-trembling fingers. First, she’s glaring, but you’re still laughing and tears start to stream down your face and through it all you can just make out her expression shifting to one of concern. You don’t dare wipe your eyes, because the polish is still wet on both hands and she made it very clear you weren’t allowed to do anything until it was dry.

And she stares at you for the longest time. Or maybe it’s not the longest time, it just feels that way, because everything slows down whenever she looks at you. She doesn’t speak until you’re starting to calm down, breath hitching a little painfully.

_“What_ is so funny?” She’s pretty good at masking the genuine worry in her voice, except you know her, so you know that the harder she tries the more there is to mask. You know it must look so weird to her, and you don’t even really have an answer to give her.

“Oh, nothing, I just…you know how sometimes you…” You stumble over your words, still trying to recover from your fit of laughter. “No, nevermind. I just realized–”

_I’m in love with you._

“–realized I left something at home.” You don’t say it, you can’t say it. It’s like a hand in the air, but you can’t reach out and take it, because what if you fall? “It seemed funny, because of course, right? I dunno.”

Time slows down again because her eyes are boring into you and you know she knows you’re lying. She always knows, and she must know you know that. But she doesn’t press it, you think, because if you know she knows and you’re lying anyway, you must really not want to talk about it.

And you really don’t. Well, you kind of do. You want to tell her, but the thought of having that conversation makes you sick and dizzy and breathless, so you push it far from your mind. You don’t have to tell her, you decide. You think maybe she already knows, anyway, and just doesn’t want to say anything about it.

You can wait it out forever, as long as you don’t say it.

She goes back to painting your nails, slowly, carefully, but there’s a tension between you now. You don’t like it, but you also don’t know how to break it. Maybe it’s just another thing you shouldn’t say out loud, another hand hovering around you, fingers just shy of brushing skin. You wonder how much longer you can do this, letting the hands gather around you before they start to suffocate you. You wonder if they’ll ever force the words from your throat.

You don’t know whether you hope they do, or hope they don’t.

You wonder what Neptune hopes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, if you'd like to send me prompts for this, you can do so on [my wktd sideblog.](http://adhdjupiter.tumblr.com)


	4. tangibility.

It’s the most impossible thing to describe. You’re not sure why, though. You look at it from every direction and you know the words are there, hovering just out of reach, and if you could only stretch your arm a little further, your fingertips just might brush them.

But you can’t, and they don’t, and you still don’t know how to solidify this… _thing_ into something tangible.

You decide to break it into pieces.

First, there’s the _thing_ with you and Neptune. This one is obvious. Or, not obvious exactly, but maybe it should be, except both of you act like it isn’t. Thinking about it makes your head hurt. You think she feels how you feel, but neither of you wants to say it out loud. Instead, you push it down and pretend it isn’t there even though it hangs low and heavy in the air between you, almost suffocating. You know if you just acknowledged it, everything would be so much lighter, but somehow the words always get stuck in your throat.

You can’t even think the word _love_ in her direction, no matter how right you think it would feel.

Alright, fine, that one’s too hard. Moving on. Whatever there is between you and Venus–this one’s easier, probably.

It’s still hard to put your finger on with any precision, but it feels calmer, more settled. Old friends with a tinge of faded romance; something that could be if you chose to choose each other but neither of you have made that decision just yet. It makes you a little nervous, knowing you could choose that but not knowing if Venus would. You think she would. It would be comfortable, it would be best friends, a love story as old as time itself. It would be _easy_.

That’s something you think you could handle. Everything with Neptune feels new and raw and scary and you’re never sure how to handle it, but on the other hand she seems to grasp some of your more abstract thinking better than Venus does. You like that. You like being understood.

And then, then there’s Neptune and Venus. This is harder for you to contextualize, because you’re not involved, but you think you can see what’s going on. Kind of.

Neptune has a way of showing affection so that it doesn’t seem like she actually is. She wants you to know she cares, but she doesn’t want to actually say she cares, so she sort of ends up…lovingly bullying you. You understood how this worked from the beginning, or at least you realized it very early on. Venus didn’t. You don’t blame her for that, really. Neptune is a master of hidden emotions.

You do think she gets it now, though. You think maybe she even has a hint of a crush; it all feels so much like how you were just a few weeks ago. You can’t help but wonder where it’ll end up.

And now, even sorting through each pair individually hasn’t made it feel any closer, any clearer. It makes your head swim, thinking about how your heart swells for Neptune and your head clears for Venus. It makes your hands itch, it makes you want to reach out, but they’re both too far away right now. You want to hold them close, reassure yourself that whatever this is between the three of you–it’s real.

It’s tangible.


End file.
